An Islamic scholar and political activist, Dr. Usman Bugaje, has accused the leadership of the Nigerian Senate under Senate President Godswill Akpabio of consistently undermining the country’s democratic process, alleging a pattern of deception, weak lawmaking, and poor legislative conduct.
Bugaje made the remarks on Tuesday during an appearance on Arise Television’s Morning Show, where he spoke in support of the ongoing efforts to amend the Electoral Act in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling.
According to him, the amendment is necessary to provide clarity and precision in the law, particularly to guarantee transparency in elections through the compulsory real-time electronic transmission of results.
He explained that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had already recommended mandatory real-time transmission of election results and noted that the House of Representatives had adopted this position.
However, he accused the Senate of opposing the move.Bugaje further criticized the Senate’s past legislative record, alleging that its actions in areas such as tax laws and budgetary processes had created confusion and weakened governance.
He claimed that legislative irregularities had led to multiple overlapping budgets, making economic planning difficult for businesses and investors.
Describing the current Senate leadership as a major obstacle to effective governance, Bugaje questioned its relevance and called for greater public scrutiny of its actions.
He said the Supreme Court ruling made it necessary to amend the law to ensure clarity, accuracy, and transparency, stressing that credible elections depend on immediate electronic access to results so citizens can see where votes are coming from in real time.
Bugaje said: “You see, this is precisely because of that ruling of the Supreme Court, it has become necessary for us to now go back and amend the law for clarity, accuracy and precision, so that everybody will be clear.
“The whole idea is to do a transparent election, and the best way to is to make sure that the results are available electronically, immediately, that’s real time, so that everybody can see exactly where the votes are.
“INEC has gone as far as saying that there should be mandatory transmission of results in real time.
“The House of Reps have done exactly that, while the Senate is always caught cheating or deceiving people.
“It is one thing that we really have to address after this amendment.
“This is not the first time that Senate is found napping or is caught cheating in terms of, you know, their basic function of law making.
“They have done that, like we just mentioned, with the tax law.
“They have done that with padding of budgets, and as a result of the mess they have done, we have now nearly three budgets, none of which is rarely functional.
“You don’t know where really you are.“So businesses cannot plan because they don’t know which budget is going to be implemented, which one is going to be funded.
“And so the Senate leadership, at least, is now being the biggest problem you know of this country, and we need to begin to ask what use are these leaders.
“What kind of irresponsible behavior is this?“So we’ll have to take that up after we have gone through the amendment.
“But I think there is a groundswell of opinion across the country, even with their fellow legislators in the House, that this mandatory transmission in real time is what everybody wants, and that’s what should actually be done. And Nigerians are not ready for anything less.”
